Chapter 4
I could not walk without crutches.
My doctor said leaving the hospital could damage the repaired bone.
I left anyway.
Detective Cole fitted a microphone beneath my coat.
Federal agents followed from a distance.
The lakefront estate had belonged to Grandma for forty years.
I spent summers there as a child.
After Mom died, Grandma stopped visiting.
Now I understood why.
It held memories of both her daughters.
The front door stood open.
Dad sat inside the living room with his hands tied.
Blood covered one side of his face.
Ryan stood behind him holding the bat.
Diane waited beside the fireplace.
“You brought police,” she said.
“No.”
She lifted a small electronic detector.
The microphone beneath my coat beeped.
Ryan crossed the room and tore it away.
He smashed it beneath his shoe.
Outside, the police lost our audio.
Diane pointed toward a chair.
“Sit.”
I lowered myself carefully.
Pain shot through my leg.
“What do you want?”
“The original trust revocation.”
“There isn’t one.”
“My mother created it before she died.”
“Grandma left everything to me.”
“She stole my birthright.”
Diane opened a cabinet and removed a bundle of letters.
They were written by Eleanor after being forced to surrender her baby.
She had begged the adoption agency to return Diane.
The requests were denied.
“You knew she searched for you,” I said.
“She stopped.”
“She was seventeen.”
“She had Caroline. She had you. She built a perfect family while I grew up with strangers.”
Her pain was real.
So were her crimes.
“What happened to my mother?”
Diane’s face became still.
“Caroline should have convinced Eleanor to divide the company.”
“You killed her because she refused?”
“I did not touch her car.”
“Then who did?”
Diane looked at Ryan.
He tightened his grip on the bat.
Dad lifted his head.
“Ryan’s father.”
Diane struck Dad across the mouth.
“Be quiet.”
Ryan froze.
“My father died when I was twelve.”
“That is another lie,” Dad said.
Diane had told Ryan that his father, Victor Cole, died from an illness.
In reality, Victor was the mechanic Grandma suspected.
He damaged Mom’s brakes, took Diane’s money, and disappeared.
“He is alive?” Ryan asked.
Diane ignored him.
“Where is the revocation, Emily?”
“I don’t have it.”
Diane picked up a syringe.
“The drug that stopped Eleanor’s heart is inside this.”
Ryan stared at his mother.
“You said she died naturally.”
“Eleanor was already dying.”
“You killed her?”
“She left us nothing.”
Ryan lowered the bat.
For the first time, I saw fear in his eyes.
Diane had built his life around lies.
That did not make him innocent.
But it made him unpredictable.
Dad moved suddenly.
He drove his shoulder into Ryan.
The bat fell.
I swung my crutch into Diane’s wrist.
The syringe flew beneath the table.
Dad and Ryan crashed against the fireplace.
Diane grabbed my injured leg.
I screamed.
She pulled me to the floor.
Ryan raised the bat toward Dad.
Then he looked at Diane.
“You lied about everything.”
“Help me!”
Instead, Ryan stepped back.
Dad tore free and grabbed the bat.
He struck Ryan’s arm, knocking him down.
I reached the front door and activated the silent alarm hidden in Grandma’s security panel.
Federal agents stormed the estate.
Diane rushed toward the lake.
Detective Cole caught her on the dock.
Ryan did not run.
He sat on the floor, staring at the letters.
Both were arrested.
Paramedics took Dad and me back to the hospital.
Before officers transported Ryan, he asked to speak with me.
“I know where my father is.”
“Tell the police.”
“He has the original recording of your mother’s crash.”
“Why would he keep it?”
“Insurance against Diane.”
Ryan leaned closer.
“But he will destroy it when he learns she was arrested.”
“Where is he?”
Ryan gave me an address.
Police raided the property that night.
Victor was gone.
On the wall, he had left a photograph of my mother’s wrecked car.
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Across it, he had written:
ELEANOR’S GRANDDAUGHTER WILL FINISH WHAT HER MOTHER STARTED.
